SWORD OF FIRE
Katharine Kerr
Book 1 of The Justice War
Copyright
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Copyright © Katharine Kerr 2020
Cover design © Micaela Alcaino 2020
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
Katharine Kerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008276751
Ebook Edition © February 2020 ISBN: 9780008182489
Version: 2020-01-09
Dedication
For Alis Rasmussen
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part One: Eldidd and the Westlands, 1428
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part Two: Cerrmor
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
A Deverry Tale
The Honor of the Thing: Deverry and Pyrdon, 1423
Acknowledgements
Also by Katharine Kerr
About the Publisher
PART ONE
Eldidd and the Westlands, 1428
Never loose an arrow with your eyes shut.
Westfolk proverb
Chapter 1
Up in a high tower chamber, Alyssa vairc Sirra stood at a lectern and studied a massive book of ancient chronicles. A shaft of sunlight, pale from the encroaching fog, fell through the window onto the page. Now and then she looked away from the passage she was memorizing and glanced out at the view. She could see down to Aberwyn’s fine new harbor and the Southern Sea beyond, dark blue water, just flecked with white caps in the last light of the day. Soon, she realized, it would be too dark to read.
‘Lyss! Lyss!’ Gasping for breath, Mavva flung herself into the chamber. ‘You’ve got to come. Now!’
Alyssa looked up from the book. Mavva’s long dark hair had slipped from its clasp. Tendrils hung in tendrils around her face, normally so pale, now flushed and red
‘Why?’ Alyssa said. ‘What’s so wrong? And you shouldn’t run up the stairs like that. No wonder you’re all out of breath.’
‘You don’t understand. He’s dying. Cradoc the bard.’
Alyssa slammed the chronicle-book shut.
‘Let me just get my surcoat. I’ll come with you!’
With their red students’ surcoats flapping over their skirts and tunics, the two women hurried down the long spiral staircase. They ran out into the main courtyard of the United Scholars’ Collegia in Aberwyn, where they were studying in residence. The news had spread as Mavva had passed by, it seemed, because some thirty other students, men and women both, were milling about on the grassy lawn near the front gates of the scholars’ preserve. A pair of chaperones, older women dressed in black, fluttered at the mob’s edge and called out cautions. A dark-haired lad with the pale orange surcoat of Wmm’s Scribal Collegium over his breeches and shirt hurried to join them.
‘Here’s Alys!’ Rhys, Mavva’s betrothed, called out. ‘What shall we do, go up to the dun?’
‘That’s where I’m bound,’ Alyssa called back. ‘If we want to see him fairly treated, we’d best all go.’
The pack followed her out of the gates into the streets of Aberwyn, dim with the early twilight of a damp spring day. Already the lamplighters were out working, one to steady a ladder while the other climbed up to light the wicks of the oil lanterns from his coil of smoking fuse. Shopkeepers stood yawning at their doors; townsfolk hurried home with baskets of food from the marketplace or trotted out on one last errand. Every now and then a fine coach and four clattered down the narrow streets and made the students jump back against the shopfronts.
As they panted up the last steep hill, other students and the merely curious joined them from taverns or public squares, calling out the news to those still behind them. No one could believe it, that Gwerbret Ladoic would go so far as this, to let a true bard starve himself to death before his gates.
‘Every bard in Eldidd will be singing his shame in a fortnight,’ Mavva said.
‘If it takes that long,’ Alyssa said. ‘The news will go out with the mail coaches, I’ll wager.’
The grand dun of the gwerbrets of Aberwyn stood on the highest hill in town, as befitted the dwelling of one of the most important noblemen in the land. A wall of worked tan stone set it off from the city, but its cluster of towers and brochs stood so tall that you could see them, pointing up like hands, over the wall. Some of the towers bore a conical roof, covered in slate tiles, in the new courtly style, and glass caught the setting sun in every window. A fortune, that dun had cost the Western Fox clan, and townsfolk grumbled that bribes from the gwerbret’s law courts had paid for it all.
Just outside the main gates huddled a crowd of some hundred persons, but they kept a respectful distance from Cradoc, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground and slumped against the wall. Under his dirty gray breeches and a shirt as loose as a shroud, he was so ghastly thin, all bone and skull’s grimace, his skeletal fingers clutched round his harp, that Alyssa wondered how he managed to hold his head upright. Kneeling beside him were his two young apprentices, both in tears, and the grim-faced journeyman who’d sworn to take his place when the end came.
‘Not one sign of the gwerbret and his wretched heir,’ Rhys muttered. ‘May the gods curse them!’
‘Hush!’ Alyssa snapped. ‘You’ll get yourself transported to the Desolation for saying things like that.’
Behind them the crowd swelled steadily. It filled the street, spilled out into the long carriage drive round the dun walls, but everyone kept silent, barely breathing, it seemed. Alyssa felt them as a huge hand pressing at her back, driving her forward. She moved close enough to see Cradoc clearly – the pale gray hair, plastered to the all-too-prominent skull; the eyes, pools of unseeing shadow. One of the apprentices dipped a linen napkin into a jug of water, then held it to his master’s lips. For some days now Cradoc had been too weak to drink from a cup. The bard’s mouth stayed shut. With a wail the ’prentice burst out keening and flung the napkin to the cobbles.
‘He’s gone!’ the journeyman shouted. ‘Look you at Aberwyn’s justice!’
The crowd roared. The keening began, high and musical, sobbing and wailing as everyone began to sway, back and forth, back and forth. Alyssa keened with them; she linked her arms with Mavva on one side and Rhys on the other as they rocked, bound by grief. Their leader was dead, their leader had fallen in a battle as real as any fought with swords and crossbows. In a time of change all over the far-flung kingdom of Deverry, the gwerbret of Aberwyn had held firm for the past and its outmoded ways, even while the most famous bard in the province of Eldidd starved himself at his door in protest.
Cutting over the keening and the sobs came the call of a silver horn. With the grinding of a winch and the grumble of timbers on stone the great gates swung slowly open. Through the widening view Alyssa caught sight of men in red and brown tartan trousers and vests over their loose shirts mounting horses. Cavalry sabres flashed as the horn sounded again. The men were sheathing the sabres and taking some other weapon out of their belts. Alyssa stood on tip-toe to see: horsewhips!
‘Run!’ Alyssa screamed. She let go of Mavva and Rhys’s arms. ‘When the crowd breaks we’ll be trampled!’
But although the crowd swirled as the prudent slipped away, it refused to break. When the cavalrymen edged their horses out, they carried not sabres but horsewhips – after all, it was their own fellow citizens they were facing, there in the darkening streets. For a moment utter silence and utter stalemate held. The troop leader, the gwerbret’s younger son, Lord Gwarl, urged his bay horse forward.
‘Disperse!’ he called out. ‘In the name of Aberwyn I command you! Clear this street immediately!’
The keening continued. The crowd swayed but never moved to leave.
‘Rabble, all of you!’ Gwarl stood high in his stirrups and yelled. ‘Scum! Disperse!’
A rock sailed through the air and smacked Lord Gwarl’s horse in the chest. With a whinny it reared, nearly unseating its rider. The crowd laughed and howled. Gwarl settled his horse down and began screaming at the top of his lungs, but his words died in the screech from the mob, laughter and rage all mingled into one hideous noise. Another rock, another – the troop swung horsewhips up and charged full toward the crowd.
Alyssa heard herself shriek with the others. She tried to run, found herself caught in a press of bodies, looked round frantically but saw no sign of Mavva and Rhys. Apparently they’d taken her good advice even if she’d been too stupid to follow it herself. All round her people were screaming, staggering, flailing out at one another as they tried to get free enough to run. Horses neighed and reared; the cavalrymen were swearing and yelling as the whips snapped and swung. As people scrambled to get away from the whips, the crowd turned porous. The horsemen pressed forward into the gaps. Horses kicked and bit. People screamed and bled. Moving back toward town became impossible.
Alyssa worked her way between two burly young men, then darted forward toward the wall just as a whip cracked the air beside her ear. Her mouth framed a soundless scream as she looked up into the sweaty face of a young cavalryman, leaning from his saddle. He was weeping, cursing a steady stream as duty drove him past her into the helpless crowd. The men behind her saw that she was heading for the clear space at the wall so that she could run round the dun and find safety that way. Yelling to one another they surged forward behind her just as another horseman swung his mount round to their direction. Alyssa nearly fell, steadied herself barely in time, kept moving, half-running, half-carried forward as the men behind her pressed forward toward the wall.
The screams turned horrible as agony and terror lashed the crowd. Cries and shouts told Alyssa that people were falling, being trampled. She bent her will to staying upright, staying on her feet. Someone slammed into her from the side as he tried to evade the oncoming horseman. Someone else screamed, slipped, clutched at her arm. She shook him off before he could take her down with him, then staggered foward only to stumble over something hard – she never did see what it was – and nearly fall. Strong hands grabbed her arm from behind and swung her around, hauled her back onto her feet. She found herself staring up at the dead-pale face of a young man. Nothing else about him registered, but that he was as frightened as she was.
‘Hold on!’ he yelled at her. ‘We’ll get out of this better as two.’
She linked her arm with his and pushed forward again. Buoyed up by his strength she could keep walking, keep her head up, too, and see where they were going. From the screams behind her she knew that she didn’t want to turn and see where she had been. At last they gained the wall, could sidle along it, could ease themselves in position for one last burst of speed and rush forward. They gained an alley at the beginning of the town proper and trotted down it, turned out into the Street of the Silversmiths and into a pool of lamplight.
Safe.
‘Thank every god they hang those street lamps so high,’ her rescuer said. ‘If one of them fell into the thatch …’
Alyssa felt suddenly sick and oddly cold. He caught her elbow and steadied her. For a few minutes they stood listening to the sounds – the screaming, the weeping, the neighing of frightened horses, and over it all the cracking of the whips and the cursing of troopers.
‘This night will light a fire of a different kind,’ Alyssa said at last. ‘His Grace will feel its heat soon enough.’
‘Oho! So you’re one of the rabble-rousers, are you?’
‘Is that how you see us? Rabble?’ She pulled her arm free. ‘My thanks for your aid, but I’ve naught more to say to you.’
Alyssa turned on her heel and stalked off.
‘Wait!’ He was calling out, trotting after her. ‘I meant no insult, fair maid. Just a jest of sorts. Here, look, if anyone’s rabble, it’s me.’
Alyssa stopped in the next pool of lamplight. She could still hear the screaming and the horses, but faintly now, as if the noise had both lessened and moved far away. Was the troop following the mob down to the collegium? If so, she’d best wait to go back, but here she was, a woman alone on a darkening street. And what of Rhys and Mavva? Were they safe? Her rescuer hurried up and made her a bow.
‘Forgive me?’ he said. ‘I’m afeared I know naught of your town’s politics. I’m from Lughcarn.’
For the first time she looked at him with some attention. A tall man, broad in the shoulders and well-built, he had a touseled mane of sandy-brown hair and, as far as she could tell in the flickering light, his eyes were blue. He wore ordinary clothes, a pair of breeches and tall boots, a linen shirt with flowing sleeves and over it a leather waistcoat. At his belt he carried an elven finesword at one side and at the other, a knife with a silver handle. A silver dagger. She recognized the three little spheres on the dagger’s pommel. No wonder he’d called himself rabble.
‘So, you guard the coach roads, do you?’ she said.
‘I do, and I’ve ridden a few barges, too.’
When he flashed her a smile, she realized that he was a handsome man in a rough sort of way.
‘Cavan of Lughcarn’s my name.’ He made her a bow. ‘At your service, my lady. May I escort you to the safety of your home?’
Alyssa hesitated, but he at least seemed gallant enough. Who knew what sort of man might be lurking in the riot-torn streets?
‘My thanks to you, good sir. My name’s Alyssa vairc Sirra, and I’d be grateful for your company. I’m in residence at the collegium. At Lady Rhodda’s Hall.’
‘Ah! One of our new lady scholars, then. And as beautiful as learning itself, from what I can see in this wretched lamplight, anyway.’
‘You, sir, have a tongue as silver as your dagger, but I’m not the sort to be cut to the heart. Shall we go, then, before the gwerbret’s riders come back?’
Together they hurried downhill through the twisting streets of the city. Townsfolk stood, watching the streets, in the doorways of shops and houses, at the gates of an inn here, a tavern there. Some held lanterns, which they raised high to peer at Alyssa and her escort. They called out hopeful names but shrank back disappointed as Alyssa and Cavan passed them by.
‘A fair many people came up to the gates,’ Cavan remarked. ‘I was having a pint in a tavern when I heard the excitement brewing, so I drifted up to take a look. Too much excitement, but meeting you, I had a silver dagger’s luck.’
‘Let’s hope it’s not evil luck. Silver daggers have been thrown out of Aberwyn for far less than consorting with rabble.’
‘Oh, now, here! Don’t keep holding that against me! I’m a stranger, and I knew not what I was saying.’
‘Well, true spoken. You’re forgiven.’
In the next pool of lamplight, he grinned at her, and despite herself, she returned the smile.
‘Lughcarn, is it?’ she said. ‘I hear they call it the City of Black Air.’
‘The smelter smoke is bad, truly, but we prefer to call it the City of Iron Men. But I don’t mean the noble-born by that. The iron trade and the guilds hold the real power there.’
‘Good for them! So, what brings you to Aberwyn?’
‘The trouble up on your northern border. Some of the lesser lords might be wanting to add a man to their warband.’
‘Oh, now, here! Do you truly think that silly feud will turn into a war? From what I understand, it’s over some hundred acres of land and one village.’
‘It’s not the land.’ Cavan shook his head. ‘It’s the honor of the thing. Gwerbret Standyc of the Bears wants land that one of Aberwyn’s allies claims. I don’t know which ally. No one farther east seemed to know. But anyway, the ally has appealed to your gwerbret. I did hear that. So now you’ve got two gwerbretion bellowing at each other like bulls in adjoining pastures. Neither’s going to back down.’
Alyssa felt like screaming in useless rage. The noble-born fought among themselves all the time, here on the western border of the kingdom. The common folk paid for those bloody battles with their taxes and the lives of their young men.
‘If we had true courts of justice,’ she said, ‘mayhap we could do summat about these stupid squabbles. Settle them by laws, not the sword. Bulls, are they? Cocks squawking in the barnyard, more like, over the juiciest worms!’
Cavan laughed. ‘You’d best not say that where Gwerbret Ladoic’s men can hear you.’
‘No doubt you’re right, good sir. Shall we go, then?’
When he offered her his arm, she took it, and they headed downhill.
The Scholars’ Collegia compound stood behind walls down near Aberwyn’s harbor. In the midst of narrow lawns and old oaks rose three separate broch complexes, each a tall tower joined round its edges by smaller towers like the petals of a daisy. Men students occupied the two tallest hives, as the students termed them, while the women’s college sat some distance away, caught between the kitchen garden and the back wall. Lady Rhodda Hall had grown from a small seed. Some three hundred years earlier, Lady Rhodda Maelwaedd had provided a bequest to a tutor charged with teaching women to read and write at Dun Cannobaen. The priests of Wmm at the nearby island shrines had taken up the idea and started a course of study based on Lady Rhodda’s library. Some ten women a year had finished the course and gone out to teach others, lasses and lads both. Slowly the knowledge of letters and learning had spread through Eldidd from the west.
Thanks to a much larger gift from Carramaena of the Westlands, the queen of the kingdom to the west of Deverry, plus endowments from various guilds, this scattered group had turned into a proper collegium some years back. Compared to the men’s collegia, which had noble patronage, it was still small and shabby, but Alyssa loved it all the same. She was always conscious of the great honor afforded her, that she’d been allowed to study the history of Aberwyn and Eldidd, as well as the philosophy of Prince Mael the Seer. Although her father served as master of the Bakers’ Guild for all Eldidd, her clan were commoners through and through.
As she and Cavan turned the last corner, they saw a crowd of men and horses standing around outside the collegium grounds. By the light of the lanterns that hung by the gates, Alyssa could just pick out the red and brown colors of the Fox clan’s livery.
‘Gwerbret’s men,’ Alyssa said. ‘I wonder if they’re waiting to arrest anyone who was part of the mob.’
‘Not a bad guess, alas.’ Cavan glanced around and pointed to the deep doorway of a nearby house. ‘Wait here.’
Alyssa stepped into the doorway and watched him from the shadows. Cavan strolled down the street and made a great show of looking around as if he were lost. Off to one side of the pack at the gates stood a fellow holding the reins of a pair of horses. Cavan stopped beside him with a friendly wave. Although Alyssa could hear nothing of their talk, she did pick up a pleasant burst of laughter. With another wave, Cavan strolled back to her.
‘They’ve come to take the gwerbret’s daughter back to the dun,’ Cavan said. ‘She doesn’t want to go with them. That lad with the horses told me that the vixen’s found a nice deep den.’
‘Vixen?’ Alyssa snorted in disgust. ‘It’s obvious he knows naught about Lady Dovina. Very well, then, I’d best go round the back way.’
Cavan escorted her as she hurried the long way round the collegium wall. At the back, not far from the women’s hive, the settling of the ground had caused a section of the stone wall to sink some few feet lower than the rest and bow inwards a bit as well. Loose stones made a precarious series of steps up and over. Alyssa started to tuck her skirts into her kirtle, but Cavan was watching the display of ankle with entirely too much interest.
‘My thanks for your aid,’ Alyssa said to him. ‘No doubt you’ll be wanting to get back to your inn and a nice tankard of ale.’
In the light from the nearby oil lamps she could see him grin. She had to admit that she found his smile charming – but a silver dagger? Like every lass in Deverry, she’d been warned against the men of that band from the time she could toddle. Mothers pointed them out and made sure their daughters could recognize the dagger they carried. Dishonored men, all of them, who wandered the roads looking for paid employment rather than serving in a proper warband – and they all have the morals of street dogs, Alyssa’s mother had always said, when it comes to lasses. Cavan, Alyssa figured, would be no better than the rest of them, despite his smile and the elegant way he bowed to her.
‘I know a dismissal when I hear one,’ Cavan said. ‘But may I see you again, on the morrow perhaps?’
‘At noon on the morrow come down to the old marketplace. Not the new one up by the gwerbret’s dun, but the old one near the smaller harbor. If all goes well, you just might find me there.’
‘I’ll pray I do.’ Cavan made her a deep bow, then turned and walked away.
Alyssa finished tucking up her skirts, then climbed the wall with the ease of long practice. Getting down again required grabbing the branch of the old oak that grew near the wall, swinging herself out and over, then slowly lowering herself to the ground. She managed and dropped lightly into safe territory. She hurried around the women’s hive and found the two chaperones standing guard by lantern light. Lady Werra clutched a stout walking stick in both hands, and Lady Graella, an iron poker.
‘Ye gods!’ Alyssa said. ‘Are we under seige?’
‘We might well be. The porters are supposed to be guarding the front gate. If they weaken and let that yapping warband in, we’re ready.’ Werra hefted the stick. ‘No men allowed in here after the last bell sounds. They’ll have to follow the rules like everyone else in Aberwyn.’
